Comments on: Who’s Paying the Bill for Restaurant Workers’ Healthcare?

By: SF Blog - The Blog about San Francisco » Blog Archive » 5% Health Care Surcharges at SF Restaurants!

Sun, 07 Sep 2008 19:53:46 +0000

[...] via digestthis Eating Out, health care, holy cow, News, restaurants in san francisco, san francisco businesses, surcharges [...]

By: Ali_Baba

Ali_Baba — Sun, 11 May 2008 09:15:21 +0000

I definitely know too many people without health care, and agree it is a luxury to eat out.
It is a bit passive-aggressive on the restaurants’ part though!
*shrug* I wonder if my favorite sushi place has more than twenty employees… Will have to ask next time. Prices have gone up.

By: sfblogg.com - Blog about San Francisco» Blog Archive » 5% Health Care Surcharges at SF Restaurants!

Thu, 08 May 2008 20:57:20 +0000

[...] via digestthis Eating Out, health care, holy cow, News, restaurants in san francisco, san francisco businesses, staff members, surcharges |del.icio.us |Digg it |SiteHoppin | [...]

By: Healthcare Jobs Guy

Healthcare Jobs Guy — Thu, 08 May 2008 19:35:56 +0000

I’m in the same boat as Colin this should not be a surcharge or tax, but then again the whole reason may be to move people to make better choices?

By: coreydavis

coreydavis — Thu, 08 May 2008 17:36:32 +0000

What Colin said makes sense, but there is a reason why they don’t just add it into the price – then customers may stop coming because the prices are too high.

By tacking it onto the bill, rather than the menu, they bank on unobservant customers who won’t even notice that they’re paying extra charges. This is the same principle behind things like McDonald’s Monopoly game they have (or at least used to have). They bank on many people not collecting the game pieces or even bothering to peel them off to see if they won an instant prize. Sure, they’re offering a million dollar prize, but how many people are bothering to keep up with all of their game pieces? Very few.

This issue also ties into the issue of tipping. Why not just make your prices so you can pay a fair wage and not have a person’s salary dependent upon the whims and generosity (or lack thereof) of the public. I used to want to open a full service restaurant where our slogan would be “we pay our employees salary, you don’t have to”. There would be no tips. The customers would get good service because that is company policy – not because they’re trying to work up a good tip.

By: sekani

sekani — Thu, 08 May 2008 08:21:29 +0000

Now that I think about it,
I think that listing the surcharge may be a passive-aggressive act of protest by the restaurant management. If I remember correctly, restaurant owners were the loudest voices against HCSO when it was on the ballot. I think they are still pissed and are passing both the extra cost, and the feeling of resentment to their patrons. For that reason, and just because it is incredibly tacky, I don’t like it. As a side note, I’d be curious to see an informal survey of which restaurants list a health care charge and which ones don’t with the results broken down by price point. There are many more related stats. I’d like to see, but I’m not going to take up anymore space.

By: Colin

Colin — Thu, 08 May 2008 01:13:05 +0000

Personally, I think if their gonna raise prices to cover health care they should list the price total on the menu — NOT list the base price and then wait till the end of the meal receipt to tack on the surcharge!

If I walk up to a restaurant to check out their menu I want to know the real cost. Not showing the real total on the menu is as bad as phone companies or rental companies that advertise 29.99 a month! and then tack on surcharge after surcharge till it’s almost twice the cost advertised.

I view it as not exactly explicitly dishonest but definitely somewhat underhanded.